The present invention relates to high speed labeling and more particularly to a magazine supply system for a high speed labeler. Most specifically, the present invention relates to a high speed label delivery system for providing stacks of labels to a high speed labeler.
Labels are supplied to high speed labeling equipment in two basic manners. In a first type of labeling machine, labels are provided to the labeling machine on a web. In a second type of machine, labels are provided in a stack. Although it would seem that a large number of labels could be supplied with ease in a stack, the speed with which such labels are applied in the modern packaging and labeling industry results in a stack of labels being used at rate on the order of a inch per second. The need to avoid jamming and shutting down a labeling machine is significant in economic terms. The labeling industry therefore places a premium is on dependability of supply systems to high speed labelers and on the related savings in labor and scheduling in packaging lines.
It might also be suspected that merely dropping a tall stack of labels on top of a nearly consumed preceding stack of labels would be a simple solution. Unfortunately, a free falling stack of labels occasionally experiences the bottom most label or labels temporarily separating from the stack. In turn, a proportion of such temporarily separated labels lose their original alignment relative to the stack, and of those misaligned labels a few subsequently are misoriented when applied to product packages or alternatively jam the labeling machine.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a device capable of dependably and rapidly supplying a stack of labels to a high speed labeling machine. It is also an object of the present invention to provide a mechanism for dropping sequential stacks of labels without separation of the bottom most labels of the stacks from the main bodys of the stacks. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a series of supply tubes or cartridges such that stacks of labels may be prepared and awaiting feeding into a high speed labeler. These objects and others are believed to be provided by the present invention.